It was an interesting weekend on the bands. The propagation was not the best to say the least, and that led to some issues. The LIDS were out in force, bitching and swearing at the contesters....you know it's very important that people use 1500w to talk on 20m across town discussing their most recent hemorrhoid medication.
I would really like to meet the American clown who was jamming me on 7.191 on Saturday afternoon because I was on "his" frequency....and he had a net to do on it in 2.5 hours!!!!!!! The audacity of me to use that frequency.....I could tell he was foaming at the mouth about it and I thought he was going to declare war. Who knows, maybe the FCC are now selling "personal" frequencies to help raise money........
Saturday morning saw the numbers at SFI=78, SN=16, A Index=26, and the K Index=3. The bands were very noisy, and had some deep QSB issues.
One of the big issues was that there was very little east-west propagation, it was nearly all north-south. It was relatively easy to work South America and the Caribbean, Europe was another matter all together!
Things were a little better on Sunday and I did manage to get Spain, Wales, Slovenia, Portugal, Finland, and Iceland in the log. Best catch of the day was 6W1RY in Dakar, Senegal, on 15m mid-afternoon on Sunday. I had been calling him on and off many times over the contest and finally broke the pileup. New Zealand also got in the log as well as a couple of other unusual places.
Even with the idiots causing issues, I managed to put 82 countries in the log with 234 contacts....BUT..... I can tell you that I had to work for every one of them.
Next up is the ARRL Sweepstakes on November 19/20, and I have to get a better 15m antenna up ready for that contest.
